Monday, July 28, 2008

What is the Liztard, that the Cosmos is Mindful of Him?

I guess we can't quite move on from the LGF business, with so many people in the blogosphere talking and writing about its ontonoetic free fall into clinical inanity. For example, Joan says that she was disappeared by the brittle Queeg for making a single comment:

"I did not argue for or against ID, but merely posited that IF I were an Islamo-fascist, then I would certainly appreciate all the excitement and hand-wringing about the Christians, as it would make my plans much easier.

"I pointed out that millions of young minds had been taught the Bible story in their youth and still went on, unassailed, to learn sound scientific principle.

"I ended with a lament that the real damage done to young minds was in forcing them to read JD Salinger."

Who could argue with that? By undermining faith and denigrating Jews and Christians, Charles is doing some of the heavy lifting for the Islamists, who know that Darwinists are only programmed to protect their own genetic asses, but do not fight for transcendent principles, since those principles can only be an illusion. Or, if they are not an illusion, then it is incumbent upon Queeg to explain how that can be so. But again, he mostly engages in ad hominem and argument from the authority of comedians.

Queeg keeps insisting that one can be religious and believe in evolution, and that is surely true. However, I am quite certain that he lacks the cognitive firepower to explain how that would work in theory and in practice. I say this because he accuses anyone who actually tries to do so of being a SHILL and a FRAUD who is perpetrating a HOAX on the CHILDREN! And then, when he bans them for trying to sap and impurify the precious bodily fluids of Liztards, they become UNHINGED and turn on him with VICIOUS ATTACKS, like this one! It is as if his critics have stolen ALL THE ADJECTIVES, so that Queeg is reduced to recycling the same ones OVER and OVER in EVERY POST about the subject!!!

Another vicious commenter, Yank in the EU, mentioned Queeg's modest foray into metaphysics, which goes as follows:

"Belief in God does not preclude belief in evolution. Belief in evolution does not preclude belief in God. Do not trust those who insist otherwise."

Yank writes that "This is a remarkable kind of statement. Following both faith and metaphysical understanding, I envision a domain of final causes that underlies and guides, impercercptibly and in a way our finite minds cannot adequately grasp, efficient causes in nature / evolution. Indeed, one might call this natural teleology or 'intelligent design' in a classical sense."

Precisely. Let's stop right there for a moment. I hate to have to impart such elementary truths, but for the benefit of Liztards from Rio Linda, if God exists, then God by definition transcends biology and everything else. In fact, God is transcendence as such, the sufficient reason for the self-evident presence of a vertical realm of transcendent being, consciousness, and bliss in this cosmos. Or, if you prefer, intelligent power, truth, and life.

A moment's reflection will confirm to you that the Absolute, being transcendent, is necessarily immanent. In other words, transcendence cannot possibly be derived from immanence, any more than Truth can be derived from matter, or "bread from stones." But the Absolute Principle, or Sovereign Good, unnarcissarily "spills over" into creation, which is precisely why, among other convenient features of our living cosmos, everything makes so much freaking sense to us. Everywhere we look, order, order, order, truth, truth, truth, beauty, beauty, beauty. How do you think it got there, moron? By random genetic drift? Sexual selection? Get a clue!

Yank continues his vicious attack: "But if, say, another person, who is intellectually sincere, reasons from perhaps theology, philosophy or even an empirical scientific point of view that there might be a conflict between some versions of the theory of evolution and the idea that that God created the universe, are we to view that person with fundamental distrust? That would be quite tyrannical, morally wrong and diametrically opposed to serious intellectual discourse with one's opponents, as if they can't be trusted merely on the basis that they arrive at different intellectual conclusions on this problem.

"Now, consider all the support this kind of obviously disturbing statement recieves at LGF. LGF has become in ways quite Stalinist and totalitarian in its dogmatic secularism, i.e. deciding which types of Christians / intellectual views are acceptable in their eyes and those worthy of personal distrust or scorn."

Again, precisely. There is nothing liberal -- and therefore conservative -- about Queeg's heavy-handed foreclosure of certain lines of investigation. To say on the one hand that God and evolution are compatible, but to then foreclose any attempt to unify them is -- well, I don't want to get technical here, but there are forms of psychosis that are "negative," so to speak, rather than "positive," so they don't stand out in the same florid way.

I don't want to get too sidetracked here, but this is commonly encountered in clinical practice. In fact, I'll no doubt see a case of it at work today. That is, there are people who see or hear or imagine "what isn't there." They are the "positive hallucinators," and they obviously represent a small minority.

But Bion recognized that there are equally people who "unhallucinate" what is there. In my writing, I call this a "dimensional defense mechanism," because the way it most commonly works is to render the meaningful meaningless by unconsciously attacking the links that connect them. This is very different from repression or from denial, the latter of which is much more crude and obvious. In contrast, the dimensional defense is reconizable by a kind of intellectual "flatness" that we recognize in our scientistic mascot, Ray, or in Queeg and the rest of the anti-intellectual neo-Liztard rabble of little Queeglings.

For these people, inability to see the evidence is confused with an absence of evidence. But that isn't where it ends, because it must be combined with a kind of omnipotent grandiosity that we always detect in these people, a grandiosity that is entirely uncalled for if reductionistic Darwinism provides an accurate account of Man -- which, after all, should provoke the very opposite sentiment, a kind of abject humility. Our pet chimp Scatter comes to mind. In spite of it all, he knows his place. It never occurs to him that he is special enough understand the origins of the cosmos, life, man, and everything else. He is a proper Darwinist, who stays within the bounds of his irreducible incompetence.

We all see that the left continues to go through a massive collective negative hallucination with regard to what is going on in Iraq. They do the same thing with regard to the burgeoning evidence against manmade global warming, or the intrinsic problems with socialized medicine, or the deleterious impact of judicial leniency in fostering crime, etc. The list is endless.

But this is where Queeg is cheek-to-jowl with the kos kids, or huffpo, or the ACLU. In fact, we should play a little game called, "Who said it, Kos or Queeg?" You will see that it's quite difficult to tell, because both employ the identical kind of rhetoric that lets you know that you're not dealing with a rational person, but with a negative hallucinator. You know this because, if you are sensitive to it, you can sense what is being projected into you -- that is to say, the heat but not any light. You can sense that you are being inducted into someone else's psychodrama, which a normal person wishes to resist. But instead of lashing out in kind, you need to reflect on what is being projected, otherwise you just fuel the negative hallucination. You will notice, for example, how a Dennis Prager routinely picks apart the negative hallucinators of the left by never engaging them on the same emotional plane, but by staying within his higher space.

So while Yank is correct that Queeg is "Stalinist" and "totalitarian," I don't think I'd put it in such terms, which are bound to be willfully misunderstood in such a way that they will simply add fuel to the hallucination.

Yank makes the critical point that there might be a conflict between some versions of the theory of evolution and the idea that God created the universe. As I have mentioned before, when someone else began writing my book about a dozen years ago -- being that I was not yet me at the time -- I attempted to, in effect, "reason upward" from the evidence of science to arrive at God. Frankly, this isn't difficult to do, so I will not rehearse all that evidence here.

But in the end, it doesn't really accomplish much, because it only makes God possible -- or even necessary -- but it doesn't tell you anything about what sort of God you are dealing with, except perhaps one who is devilishly good at math. Nor does it allow one to experience God.

No. For that, you have to get into the back of the line and start all over, through one of the traditional channels. So at best, the self-evident existence of "intelligent design" gives one "permission to believe," but that is all. (And when I say "self-evident," I mean that one is simply drawing out all of the vast metaphysical implications that follow from the fact that man is indeed intelligent and may therefore know truth; to understand this is to understand that the non-living and the unintelligent cannot be ultimate.)

Once I began a serious spiritual practice in 1995 (although in hindsight, I now see that the practice began many years before that, and that I was guided all along by an unthought Self that was dragging me toward it), I began to "harvest" in such a way that what was once a lot of theoretical knowledge (k) began blossoming into (n). Once that happens, you stop asking if "intelligent design" proves the existence of God.

Rather, in your properly oriented, right-side-up cosmos, you now begin to ask "given that God exists, what must the universe be like?" While I suppose other universes could exist, they couldn't be a lot different from this one in terms of the fundamental metaphysical principles that govern it, at least if it is to include self-conscious and intelligent subjects capable of knowing truth, love, and beauty, not to mention the Absolute.

And this is where a Frithjof Schuon comes in, for I believe that he most adequately articulates the nature of those timeless principles, at least in the most intelligent and luminous way (for one needs both, the intelligence and barakah, or light and grace) that is suitable for the true gnostic. These identical principles are -- of necessity -- embedded in Christianity or Judaism, but for certain types -- the Raccoon type, actually -- we want to go past the shell and get to the kernel. But not for a moment do we denigrate the bhakta or karma yogin; it's just that it takes all kinds to make up a world, and I don't think God intended for religion to exclude the intellectually gifted.

An example of one of the surprising findings of modern science that "must be" is that the cosmos is thoroughly entangled with itself across both space and time. If this weren't the case, then neither knowledge nor intelligence could exist, not to mention the intersbjectivity that makes human consciousness possible. It is only because we are "members of one another" that we can be human at all. But only a very special type of cosmos allows for intersubjectivity, as explained in my book.

Given the temporal and spatial entanglement of the cosmos, when we look "out" at the red shift that proves the big bang, we are also looking back, in, and forward. Because when rays of light from this event -- simultaneously distant and close -- touch our retina and enter the brain, we are in effect witnessing the birth of the cosmos. But since the cosmos is nonlocal, one could equally say that the cosmos is watching itself being given birth through the medium of human consciousness -- which is paradoxically there at the beginning (and even before the beginning, if you believe Petey).

So are we seeing consciousness give birth to the cosmos? Or the cosmos give birth to consciousness?

112 comments:

"I attempted to, in effect, "reason upward" from the evidence of science to arrive at God."

"But in the end, it doesn't really accomplish much, because it only makes God possible -- or even necessary -- but it doesn't tell you anything about what sort of God you are dealing with, except perhaps one who is devilishly good at math. Nor does it allow one to experience God. "

"...you now begin to ask "given that God exists, what must the universe be like?"

Yep, that's about where I was when I wandered in here. Things have been getting weirder (in the best possible way) ever since :)

Charles stated one night that one can be an evolutionist and believe in God. So I asked him if he believed in God and was banned for being 'rude' to the host as the minions explained to the others who were shocked that my account was blocked.

But things like heliocentrism and relativity and evolution and QM were big surprises, even though we thought the universe made sense before we figured them out. Einstein hated the disorder in QM. But hey, that's 'High Weirdness' for you.

he mostly engages in ad hominem and argument from the authority of comedians.

Well, calling him "Queeg" is pretty funny, too.

The problem with citing comedians as your source is that it is very like citing politicians: expediency is everything. If stringing folks along with the atheism bit gets boring, Penn and Teller are just as likely to have a born-again Scientologist experience and debunk everything they've ever said; just for the mere amusement of watching their fiercest fan-boys totally plotz.

And that's why I choose not to engage the proofs, theorems and expositions of clowns or Lizards; because the enemy isn't engaged there, either. Islamo plans are far ahead of the news cycle. But the limited sight of the Lizard keeps it engaged with the tasty morsel dancing close by.

Oh, and, just to rub Charles' face in his own self importance: I used to be a printer/typesetter during the same time that Bush was in the Texas Air National Guard. So, I knew what a typeset letter would look like, and that you'd need a 20,000 dollar machine to create one back in the 70's.

I didn't need Charles' fancy little gif to tell me that Dan Rather's memos were faked. But, if many others hadn't said aloud what they merely believed, based on intuition, there mayn't have been any impetus for investigating further.

And that's all the ID argument is. Positing that perhaps there is another explanation and maybe investigating it would be a good idea.

I guess Queeg really thinks he's the only one who can say what is worthy of investigation, and how to go about it.

But I don't need his "expertise" in either science or religion. Why, indeed, should I be mindful of him?

There is no such thing as "Darwinism." Thats a smear term invented by creationists.

What is an "evolutionist?"Actually, it's an idiotic smear term, invented by creationists to try to impute to scientists the same kind of blind unreasoning fanaticism that creationists possess. To those who know what you're doing, it's a classic case of projection.

But ironically, the jihadis are just as opposed to the theory of evolution as creationists. So they have that in common.

Or rather, as the thought has finally clarified itself unto words in my slow brain :) , why ARE we mindful of him....

I have seen many hearts wounded and bleeding, by his hand, the greater crescendo beginning around last November....

Having the "position of authority" that he does by dint of being owner of a blog, he operated, up until then, in a goodly manner to turn many hearts toward himself as only one of a delighted and delightful vital community.

I believe in the God of the impossible, and still, daily, nearly unceasingly, have been lifting him up before the Throne....

None of God's words come back to Him void.....and plenty of them have been directed Charles' way........something has got to give..... :)

Most people I know who are 'creationists' believe in evolution, that is, 'microevolution'. This is to say, you have a non-answer, bar. If I state my answer properly it will appear that you have said a foolish thing in your lumping of 'creationists' in to a single category because (surprise) there's not really a homogeneous belief.

On to my point. It is clear that you would not consider belief in microevolution - which does not establish the process by which new species arise (whatever a species actually is ... oops, Nous talking again) - actual belief in evolution. Thus I will make the argument simple for you.

As I have improperly defined what you mean by 'belief in evolution' and thus 'blind creationist' (or whichever term you wish) you have done the same: In both cases there is a particular quality to the belief which makes it what it is, and not so much 'how much of this or that you think is going on.' Ray might see a lot of order and meaning, while another might see meaninglessness. But neither apprehends the higher thing, and thus still ultimately falls into the category of 'evolutionist'.

Part two. A more sophisticated creationist will recognize that metaphysics does not describe 'how' it happened but 'why' - and thus not use Genesis as a scientific text. But, certain non-believers, lets say, see only the belief in God, and therefore insist that anyone who believes in God must be as the most hidebound creationist. (Please note, there have been creationists since the dawn of time who did not think of the story of the beginning of the world except as a legend or myth, or as a spiritual understanding, or vague outline.)

On the other hand, Bob - as best as I can tell - uses the term Evolutionist or Darwinist to define a person who is in a state of non-belief about God and has, more or less, replaced Him with 'Evolution' or a scientific cause as the first cause.

"Creationists" is just a derogatory term invented by the anarchists. It paints the issue with a broad brush info-byte for ease of handling.

Meanwhile, I think most normal conservatives--not even involved in the wider discussion-- just have a problem with a theory (your term, bar) being labeled as a closed and empirical truth. It simply is not.

Which leaves the subject open for all comers, no matter what they believe. I mean, sheesh, Scientology is cheerfully suffered to exist peacefully... go pick on L.Ron's gang.

Oh I don't what came over me as I became an unhinged lunatic when a statement was made that one would assume is all inclusive to evolutionists and god-fearers alike. What I didn't know was the one making the statement was the exception and so my devilously clever, rude and vicious question became a trap for the one who could not answer.

"And so we have turned in favour of the humanities the No wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel, against the Eternal! which seemed against them when we started. The ‘hairy quadruped furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in his habits’ carried hidden in his nature, apparently, something destined to develop into a necessity for humane letters. The time warns me to stop; but most probably, if we went on, we might arrive at the further conclusion that our ancestor carried in his nature, also, a necessity for Greek... As before, it is not on any weak pleadings of my own that I rely for convincing the gainsayer; it is on the constitution of human nature itself and on the instinct of self-preservation in humanity. The instinct for beauty is set in human nature, as surely as the instinct for knowledge is set there, or the instinct for conduct..."

That was the start of my beginning to glace upwards and inwards for Sweetness and Light, and One Cosmos has helped in finding the Light Source.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/30340_Science_Photo_of_the_Day/comments/#ctop#137 & 181 Charles 6/15/08 9:08:25 amWhat is an "evolutionist?"Actually, it's an idiotic smear term, invented by creationists to try to impute to scientists the same kind of blind unreasoning fanaticism that creationists possess. To those who know what you're doing, it's a classic case of projection.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/30370_Video-_Bobby_Jindal_Supports_Teaching_Intelligent_Design/comments/#5452266#411 Charles 6/16/08 5:39:20 pmThere is no such thing as "Darwinism." Thats a smear term invented by creationists.

"to render the meaningful meaningless by unconsciously attacking the links that connect them."

That's the way Deconstruction & Post-Modernism also work, don't they?

Hmmm... albeit, consciously setting out to attack & destroy linking. That's gotta spill over into the 'unthought' arena too. Have in mind young sculls full of mush & PoMo indoctrination by wackademics, for what, going-on 40 years.

Institutionalized instilling of massive collective-negative-hallucination 'skills' in the populace. Heck, no wonder so many can't think their way out of a paper-bag.

My sharp-as-a-tack 87 yr old Mamina says people-in-general have definately gotten stupider over the last several decades - could this account for it?

Question to Bob:Are the number of "dimensional defense mechanism" cases increasing & if so, do you expect an upward trend for the future?

This is Bob at work, but the answer is YES, for a whole host of reasons that facilitate psychologicvsal fragmentation, and with it, loss of contact with the suprasensible. I was actually thinking about posting on that tomorrow...

I have a question and it isn't intended to ruffle feathers or be trollish. When a species color changes or it develops a different form of movement or shape is that Adaptation or Evolution? Also if one believes in an all powerful God then wouldn't he be able to have used Evolution? Or am I being silly to even consider this?

I thought you guys did a good job of disagreeing with my wrongly written comment in a very nice way, not one personal attack was contained therein.

You guys are a credit to this web site, thanks to Gagdad Bob for his site.

One of many things I found disturbing about Queeg was under a thread that linked to Pandas thumb, Queeg claimed Pandas thumbs was talking trash and its Queegs policy not to comment on any web site but his own, so Queeg asked the liztard nation to run to his defense and they or one of them happily obliged.

That just added to the psychosis of the liztard nation and made me feel like the spandex wearing web site was being run by a 13 year old boy going on 6.

Evolution at it's core is only partially (and perhaps incorrectly, I dont know and neither does anyone else for CERTAIN) describing a possible MECHANISM of physical changes in living things.

Masterflating it into a CAUSE for all life is like saying the engine built the Harley

furthermore

No one, not even Holy Science, can accurately define or describe TIME and prove their assessment is the correct and only answer.

Therefore IMO 6,000 years and 15 billion years are both right and both wrong http://books.google.com/books?id=F7wNQk219KMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Encyclopedia+of+Time&sig=ACfU3U3iVUsLDcqc-v7stgcOk_2Bkvth2AFurthermore our perceptions as enclosed in the physical are limitedwe re limited to hypotheising about what we can perceive

meantime most o the universe is "missing" and is comprised of mythical "dark matter" that science does not understand or comprehend and has not yet ID'ed.

"But Bion recognized that there are equally people who "unhallucinate" what is there. In my writing, I call this a "dimensional defense mechanism," because the way it most commonly works is to render the meaningful meaningless by unconsciously attacking the links that connect them. This is very different from repression or from denial, the latter of which is much more crude and obvious. In contrast, the dimensional defense is reconizable by a kind of intellectual "flatness" that we recognize in out scientistic mascot, Ray, or in Queeg and the rest of the anti-intellectual neo-Liztard rabble of little Queeglings."

And Ximeze asked "That's the way Deconstruction & Post-Modernism also work, don't they? Hmmm... albeit, consciously setting out to attack & destroy linking. That's gotta spill over into the 'unthought' arena too. Have in mind young sculls full of mush & PoMo indoctrination by wackademics, for what, going-on 40 years."

That is where the real damage that the skepticism of Descartes, Hume and Kant (forget what the textbooks say, read them yourself - they were all skeptics; Descartes chickened out, Kant diverts your attention while he pulls the noumenal rabbit out of your a**... only Hume was willing to admit it) have done to modernity, they've seriously degraded the, to slip into some database geekese, Referential Integrity of our mental input and output and our ability to integrate our thought with reality.

To borrow from myself (cover your ears if my own horn is tooting too loudly):"In the end, Hume grasps that his ideas don’t deepen knowledge, but destroy it, though he doesn’t grasp his error. To his credit, he doesn’t attempt to fabricate cover for his errors (as did Kant), but says ‘there’s something wrong here, but I don’t see it, and so I’ll just go right on believing it’. ... But not seeing their error, or rather than admit their motive error, the skeptics response is to kill the messenger by attacking the senses – we can only know a faked and deliberately misleading representation of reality... because of his peculiar manner of making his observations, he observed what he did not see and succeeded in convincing others that his myopic perspective was in fact the whole vista of what was there to be seen. In his blindness was sown the seeds of not seeing what was clearly there to be seen with two good eyes - but necessarily missed with a single microscope. He not only convinced others that what he didn’t see, was there to be seen by all, but that in order to claim to see, you had to shut one eye and refuse to see the full picture. "

"Institutionalized instilling of massive collective-negative-hallucination 'skills' in the populace. Heck, no wonder so many can't think their way out of a paper-bag."

Ximeze,the one dark undercurrent to the otherwise awesome travels I had last week was caused by exactly that.

Judging by my observations in the realms of Horizontia, few people these days are able to reach the stage in life whereby the youthful desire to help make the world a better place is merged together with a firm understanding of the world as it actually is. Also, there are no small number of folks who, having reached that stage, mistakenly believe that there's a guardrail to keep them from falling back into foolishness.

"But things like heliocentrism and relativity and evolution and QM were big surprises..."

All the more praise redounds to the One who turned us loose in a world ripe with discovery. :) One more aspect of His unfailing love for us, that he made us to delight in surprises, and he made a world to suit.

And we haven't discovered probably 1/1000th of it yet. It's awe-some (in the original sense, not the valley-girl sense) to think about the surprises to come. When I see astounding pictures of our earth taken by a space probe on its way to exiting our solar system, my impulse is to utter hallelujahs.

That's what we were made to do...create and discover, and then reflect the hallelujah back to the Glory that started it all. "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever."

"Rather, in your properly oriented, right-side-up cosmos, you now begin to ask 'given that God exists, what must the universe be like?'"

Bob, you nailed it. In fact, I believe the resistance of the human mind to submit to this principle (which is really submission to God) is what's behind it all. Scripture says it this way: all have fallen short of the glory of God. (See previous comment.) "Sin" is actually failing to live in this joyful mutuality between Maker and made, but that mutuality cannot happen without consenting that we are "made." That he's the Potter, and we're the clay. And that it's all on His terms, not ours.

Thus the darkened heart of the lizard, who can't see what's plain as plain. It's not an intellect problem. It's moral imbecility, really, for all morals begin and end with being in harmony with the one who made us.

I've been/attended "So. Baptist" and also "Episcopal," and "Presbyterian," and "AoG," and "E. Free," and "Charismatic," and "in-between." And even to mass a couple of times (visiting with my dad, or with a friend).

I'm in-between right now. :) Actually, went to a church of High Weirdness yesterday and loved it.

"lance said "...When a species color changes or it develops a different form of movement or shape is that Adaptation or Evolution?"

Well… Adaptation is the effect of genetic mistakes working to the advantage of the species, and enabling it to better take advantage of their environment. It's not an either or question, Adaptation is a process of Evolution. The genetic output is the cause of the adaptation. It's effectiveness is the cause of it's selecting forward or to the history bin. Something else is the cause of it being caused.

"...Also if one believes in an all powerful God then wouldn't he be able to have used Evolution? Or am I being silly to even consider this?

Speaking for no one but myself, if one believes in One cause of all that is, then one has to assume that all that is, IS, because it is Good at its being ISness. It works. It operates according to its nature, a natural expression of its underlying deisign.

If you believe the universe to be 15 billion years old, and believe it was created (in a Vertical meaning, rather than just a "Insert atom A into molecue B" manner), rather than just quantumly belched into being (in a merely magically causeless horizontal manner), it seems to indicate a certain capacity for patience. Not to mention confidence in the overall project plan.

it seems to me that the Cosmos is, and operates, as a result of what it IS. In an ever more rapidly developing progression, that ISness has allowed/enabled/caused the universe over the course of 15 billion years, as a result of its properties to produce, form and reform stars, recycle those stars, and eventually solar systems, and eventually forming at least one such planet as ours suited to progress to the point of ... supporting/conducting life, that life has developed more and more intricate integrations and expressions of what is seen, and that which is not seen, and propels the animating of what it IS, which continues to this time.

I'm sure that Thomist could describe how Aristotle's four causes flow through that progression much better than I. One Cosmos does a Big Bang up job of it too. How do we discover ourselves and our place in that process? Well… In the beginning…

I think that is it. The Academics have been teaching people not to see and calling it education. The ultimate bait and switch. It almost explains everything wrong with the modern world. The solution is simple and obvious, and something God has been talking about since the beginning. You folks sure are fruitful.

Bar said "What happened to the Horseshoe crab, that damn thing hasn’t changed in millions of years, yet evolution is always in progress."

Then again there's Sagan's Heike crabs...Gotta love Carl. Even with the faux paus of pushing global nuclear winter when global warming was the libtard doom of choice, he tried hard, and was entertaining to boot.

Sharks haven't been real big on changing either. Or rather, whatever changes they've made were less well adapted than what they already were. Hey, when you got a good deisign, you stick with what works.

Oh so those little tiny crabs don’t get eaten because they have faces on their backs?

I say they don’t get eaten because they are not worth eating, way too small when compared to Alaskan king crab, which begs my next question, why don’t they have faces on their backs to keep those deadliest catch guys from making money and thus the crabs getting eaten by the millions?

"I ended with a lament that the real damage done to young minds was in forcing them to read JD Salinger."

Wow, Joan nailed that one. I don't believe in burning books but when I go camping, I carry along a copy of "Catcher in the Rye" as a compact source of TP.

who know that Darwinists are only programmed to protect their own genetic asses

I guess that's why they call them selfish genes.

But the Absolute Principle, or Sovereign Good, unnarcissarily "spills over" into creation, which is precisely why, among other convenient features of our living cosmos, everything makes so much freaking sense to us. Everywhere we look, order, order, order, truth, truth, truth, beauty, beauty, beauty. How do you think it got there, moron? By random genetic drift? Sexual selection? Get a clue!

Absolutely. I don't see how you get past this one unless ...

But Bion recognized that there are equally people who "unhallucinate" what is there. In my writing, I call this a "dimensional defense mechanism," because the way it most commonly works is to render the meaningful meaningless by unconsciously attacking the links that connect them.

Bar, I agree with Van if the design is perfect or perfected then their is no reason for change and really Sharks and Alligators are the ultimate hunting and killing machines. They have achieved their purpose their "caste" if you will. While it is true that some animals haven't changed it doesn't make it any less true that others have. My concern is this idea that just because the so-called opposition has embraced a concept it means that it isn't plausible or even possible for it to have been done by God. It is possible to find "truth" amidst the confusion of one's own ignorance.

That is the best idea I have heard so far, but its not something blind material evolution can address.

Regarding human evolution.

It seems to me that to evolve from knuckle dragger to biped all systems have to blindly evolve at the same rate and same time, how would it be possible to walk if you have biped hips combined with knuckle dragger legs, arms, spine and skull ?

Now even if I pretend that this all happened through a slow process but all at the same time and rate, at the halfway point we have a half knuckle dragger and half biped I cant picture that being advantageous at all and certainly could not fit into survival of the fittest.

Now I am not highly educated, I barely made it though High School, but a family member is going to college for their BS and I have read the Biological anthropology books, I cant believe they think I am as dumb, as they look.

Bar said "Oh so those little tiny crabs don’t get eaten because they have faces on their backs? I say they don’t get eaten because they are not worth eating"

Probably closer to the mark. Actually, the human selection argument has had opposition from amonst the ranks since T.H.Huxley's Son? Grandson? (I forget... and I refuse to google while eating the scraps of pizza my kids left me... while smushed into my chair which is smushed between every scrap of furniture in the house by the carpet installers. One must keep their dignity about them) first proposed it.

"... why don’t they have faces on their backs to keep those deadliest catch guys from making money and thus the crabs getting eaten by the millions?"

How does water know to boil at a sensible 212° with an ocean view? How does a rock know to stop falling when it hits the ground? When you've got a Good deisign, what is Beautiful and True follows naturally from it. Good Architects build to accomodate future growth.

I occurs to me that folks like Ray come here and believe Bob is attacking a straw man in his critique of "Darwinsism", or referrring to "Darwinists". They always argue that no such person currently exists. I think it would prove useful for Bob to post a working definition of the various aspects of the "Darwinist". When people come in, not understanding the way Bob uses the term, they can simply be referred to a link to that post. It would be particurly useful, I think, since so many of Bob's recent post are reflections on this phenomenon and its effects on religion, culture, and politics.

"My concern is this idea that just because the so-called opposition has embraced a concept it means that it isn't plausible or even possible for it to have been done by God."

It's entirely possible to 'embrace a concept', that as a unit is correct in isolation, and still be completely wrong about it's derivation. You need not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Links n' attributions babe, that's where it's at. Ponder a moment what 'just' or 'true' meant to you as a 10yr old & then what they mean to you today. The core is there, but an intsy-bit different now?

OT... but in a Susannah sort of way, VDH has a great reply to the obamama:"...What disturbed me about Barack Obama's Berlin speech were some reoccurring utopian assumptions about cause and effect — namely, that bad things happen almost as if by accident, and are to be addressed by faceless, universal forces of good will.

Unlike Obama, I would not speak to anyone as “a fellow citizen of the world,” but only as an ordinary American who wishes to do his best for the world, but with a much-appreciated American identity, and rather less with a commonality indistinguishable from those poor souls trapped in the Sudan, North Korea, Cuba, or Iran..."

And does a good job of cleaning up the messyugh's recent rhetorical trashing of US.

NROtv (Uncommon Knowledge) today has up the first segment (other four Tues-Fri)

"In Defense of WWII: Chapter 1 of 5

Victor Davis Hanson and Christopher Hitchens take on the WWII revisionists, centering on Patrick J. Buchanan, the author, most recently, of Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War.In terms of the origins of the conflict, Buchanan says essentially that Britain’s guarantee to protect Poland in the event of a German invasion made the war inevitable. Hanson counters that Germany’s invasion of Poland was not an isolated act. Hitchens says Buchanan is “consciously trying to deceive us.”"

Lance said "A hardy-har-har!! Very funny Van hmmph :) You know what they say even a broken clock is right twice a day!! ;)"

(lol) tick... tick... tick... BONG! BONG! BONG!

(time for the second time around the clock)

The darwinista's problem is not evolution, which as Gagdad has pointed out many mucho times before, poses no problem to the religious view... the darwinista's problem, and in concert with modernist philosophy in general (which gave rise to them), is a denial of anything that cannot be measured and quantified, and a vicious hatred of anything above their heads.

Back with the frenchifried (how do you think Hume got so fat?) branch of the enlightenment philosophe's, they first looked for Free Will... couldn't find or measure it, and so concluded it didn't exist. Soon after, they dei-icided if there's no Volitional Choice, there can't be any Chooser or Deisigner, ipso facto! we're all just machines, pinball wiztards bounced about by the environmental flippers... which means... no human nature, no god, and best of all Oui the elites who know (know? Shh!) best, can and MUST reprogram all of humanity to operate as we see best (best? SHHH!)!

Their little 'r' religion, acknowledged or not, revolves around a denuded little 'r' reason, straight jacketed by logic chopping and the sacrament of rejecting all Qualities of Sweetness and Light.

Behind every proregressive leftist movement you'll find the rejection of the High Qualities of The Good, The Beautiful and The True, and the promotion of the flattened horizontal rutting in quantities, in your face offensiveness, and duplicitous forms of Political Correctness that 'advance' their agendas.

Joseph's suggestion is a good one, maybe Petey's listening... course Cuz might not appreciate anything that causes rust and dust to gather on his pliers... we'll see.

>>"So while Yank is correct that Queeg is "Stalinist" and "totalitarian," I don't think I'd put it in such terms, which are bound to be willfully misunderstood in such a way that they will simply add fuel to the hallucination."

Bar said "Speaking of water, how did that evolve? Oh that’s right the current scientific understanding(guess) is it came from comets millions of years ago, where did the comets get it, who cares. Now there is a testable theory!"

Lol.

Bar, careful not to fall into the trap they set for you, though. It's not a Religion vs Science Cosmos, but that is how they want to portray it. They want, desperately want, to make us seem anti-thought, anti-intellectual, anti-Science.

They want what isn't rightly theirs and never can be, just as they want to remake the world in their own image, in spite of and in opposition to what is Good, Beautiful and True... so that they can pretend that A is B - and they positively delight in prodding us to help their case. Philosophy makes unwitting conspirators of ungnowing fools.

The fact that we don't know something now, doesn't itself mean that we can't know. Sometime, assuming Science regains its soul, nearly every Physics question we have will be answered, just as nearly every Physics question Aristotle, Ptolemy, Galileo, Boyle (...) had. Of course they'll be replaced by a Geometric progression of deeper and more advanced questions. And so on, and on.

But such advances will require a full and complete Reason... little 'r' reason won't take us much farther than where we are, simply because without Vertical lift, the x/y axis will eventually hit the flatline and stop. We will stop.

If we let them.

Personally, I'm not for letting them do squat.

Fight 'em every damn'd step of the way. And laugh loudly at them while we're at it. Works like Holy Water on a vampire... which it is, and they are.

On Saturday, with family I visited what was a veritable temple of Darwinism: The San Diego natural History Museum. There were lots of interesting fossils, and lots of kid-friendly activities. A big exhibit about water conservation (and how we're ruining and wasting the water supply, of course). Actual science? Virtually non-existent. They didn't even bother to identify many of the creatures on display, and the information they did provide was extremely sparse. But they did make sure to put in a few jabs against creationists.

And just in case visitors hadn't recently had a feel-good dose of how socialism makes poor people's lives better, there was an exhibit of African art downstairs (the photos on the website don't even come close to doing the artwork justice).

*Warning - off-topic rant ahead - the following exhibit made me so angry I was shaking, but I had to maintain my composure at the time. So I'm just going to spew forth. Feel free to close this comment and skip it - I won't be insulted*

The art itself was absolutely gorgeous - stone sculpture designed by master craftsmen carrying on a family tradition resulting in work of a quality that, were it produced by a Western artist, would have provided a better-than comfortable living, and would probably garner a high amount of respect in the art world.

Of course, these artists were from Zimbabwe. So instead of getting the standard Western commission (at least 60%, I think) for the sale of their work (and it was all for sale, some pieces rightly priced upwards of $20,000), the money goes to a charity, which presumably takes a cut and filters the rest through the Zimbabwean government, which then, in its generosity, parcels some paltry amount to the community the artists live in - not, apparently, the artists themselves. (Because they're such children, donchu know, and too much money might corrupt them and lead them away from tribal life, and heavens, we can't have tribespeople trying to afford things like clean water or indoor plumbing. They might decide they actually like modern life, and then where would we get our authentic tribal art? Tsk. No, no, no.)

From an informational plaque at the museum:

"How Much Do Carvers receive from the Purchase?Ethical exporters have the sculpture listed, audited and valued by the National Gallery of Zimbabwe before it leaves the country. The price of each piece depends on the artists carving ability, generation, position in the carving community and the sculpture's truth to culture (folklore)."

note - they don't actually answer the question. How hard would it have been to say "the artists generally receive between x and y percent of the audited value"? Unless, of course, they just don't receive much of anything, individually.

"Does the Income Change Their Lives?Many people are afraid the income will "spoil" the carvers and their traditional way of life. However, strong tribal traditions and cultural values do not include the hoarding of monies. To the traditional Shona, greed is considered an illness and an aberration which is to be treated by the n'ganga or tribal healer. In fact, the artists act as a conduit through which the money is spent on needs of the entire extended family, e.g. housing, school fees, farming tools, and medical needs." (emphasis mine)

Now I may have misinterpreted the above, but judging by the informational video that accompanied the exhibit and showed the community where the artists live and work, they're not getting anything like 60% of the valued price of their work. Possibly not even 1%, which would be around $200 bucks for one big piece and quite a handsome sum in that part of the world (Zimbabwe's per capita income as of 2005 was $343).

I just love the implication here that the individual artists couldn't possibly earn a Western income without being greedy bastards who wouldn't spend a dime to support their families in whatever way they see fit. The art was gorgeous, at a level that I will never attain in my life. The commentary was utterly, shockingly condescending.

The Elders and Fathers say, miz Julie, that we should give sacrificially. However, the only way we can achieve this is through the grace of God. Demanding or guilting people with this burden - especially in a deceptive manner - outside of the work of the spirit is what we call manipulation. "You're bad people and rape the earth and these people aren't so you need to feel guilty because you can't live like they supposedly do."

How does "matter know when it reaches perfection"? It doesn't. Changes still happen. But as Van says, "whatever changes they've made were less well adapted than what they already were", so you don't see the changed sharks... they died out. "Stable niches" like that are fairly rare, but they do happen.

As Van says, "The fact that we don't know something now, doesn't itself mean that we can't know."

"In reality scopes monkey trial 2008 has zero to do with science OR religion.

It has to do with who will control the terms and definitions that will populate the premise of life in the minds of what used to be the people of Western Civilization."

Aye! The Darwinists want to redefine and control our nation from the bottom up, just like Obama wants.

They fail to see or accept that our Founding Fathers created a system of Liberty that can only operate from the top down.From Absolute to relative, Above to below, God to man.

Our very rights must be absolute and they must come from God.If Truth isn't absolute and doesn't come from God then whoever has the power and authority defines what truth is according to their finite understanding and that always results in tyranny and slavery, eating away at our liberty.

In other words, they cannot possibly see the self evident truth's our Founding Fathers saw, or that we see, because they take away the very foundation of Truth and superimpose their own version.

And that will always lead to chaos, disaster, and slavery.In effect it leads back to Egypt.Pharoah becomes god and he has nothing but contempt for the Remnant who have Liberty in their hearts and who follow Truth as God defines it.

Absolute Truth, Goodness, Beauty, Justice, Love, etc., cannot "evolve".But the Pharoah's would evolve the absolute into fluid relativity based (and debased) on their own desires.

The cold war isn't over. We have won some major battles, but we can't declare victory...yet. It is comforting to gno that Truth will win (and has) once and for all, but until we get there we must continue to fight for our Liberty every day.

"The darwinista's problem is not evolution, which as Gagdad has pointed out many mucho times before, poses no problem to the religious view... the darwinista's problem, and in concert with modernist philosophy in general (which gave rise to them), is a denial of anything that cannot be measured and quantified, and a vicious hatred of anything above their heads."

It is my observation and belief that Darwinism was specifically ordained to come into view in the earth as preparation for the great spiritual enlightenment, that Christ called the Kingdom of God, others here may see or name it is as something else.

There are not a few thinkers, writers of late that sense, or seem to know, that something is coming upon the earth and not just terrible things, but as was said in the film 2010 "Something wonderful is about to happen."

Put into Biblical terms all creation (that means every angel, human, alien, plant, animal, star, planet and things we cannot even imagine) have waited eagerly for this special time...as Roman's 8 says, "For the revealing of the sons of God."

Indeed nearly every good science fiction novel deals with this theme in Romans 8, nearly every fairy tale, in fact hardly any great literary work escapes this theme of Fall...Redemption ...then out of redeemed man the redemption of everything.

There is a template imposed upon the universe, as if the very fabric of space-time is warped to this theme. And at this time we have this monstrous philosophy, (among others) a faux-religion, that is in most ways the de-facto religion of Western Civilization.

Millions toil to produce book upon book, theory upon theory, masses of "evidence" as if by sheer volume, sheer quantity they can erase what truly is, what must be.

The belief in evolution is none other than the continual imposition of the spirit of futility, to which all creation was subjected at the fall of man.

And our spiritual awakening, as a whole, will be to throw off this futility, this belief that all is competition, all is ruthless survival. That which is about to be judged, to be damned forever, must first be exposed, to be drawn out into full light, so that those that love God, can see and define the enemy of their minds.

Just as birds cannot live if you break them out of the shell, they must fight out of that shell on their own, if you help them they will die. And to be born to a spiritual life, what many here call the vertical man (more complete) there has to be that force, that resistance to push against; that somehow in the wisdom of God...establishes you in that new life. It is a good time to be alive.

The belief in evolution is the center of Satanic thought, and if you contemplate upon that idea, you will see such a belief is the only thing that would have allowed a being of such stature, power and intelligence, and direct access to the Creator, to even entertain the idea of mutiny.

He must have thought, as only a being who was eternal, not knowing of a beginning for himself...that God was just another being like himself...pulling a fast one on him, ruling over all (In Satan's mind a harsh thing). Even as Satan's initial temptation to Eve was to emphasize the harshness of God's simple command.

No wonder we as humans born in time, will forever know that we are CREATED...no angel will ever know it to the depth of their being like one who has been redeemed. The worship of God as our creator is the most sublime, the most wonderful of all relationships. There is no greater relationship than to lean on the arms of your beloved, your creator-redeemer...forever his, forever given, forever in awe of His beauty His grace his utter joy in creating. Those that deny the creator are the most miserable of all things.

Ray - In your firm grasp of so much nothing, you are missing everything. There is a God...and you are not Him. I know that you want to believe or you wouldn't spend another moment here. So get on with it.

ray said "Is anyone going to let Kepler Sings know that evolution "poses no problem to the religious view"?"

I did. Gagdad has. The converse of that, is that Religion poses no problem to evolution itself, only its unwarranted derivations.

I trust Kepler can read and understand the comments here as well as the post, and would object if he found an objection to it. From his comment, I assume that 'evolution' stands for scientistic darwinist view, Man as determinst machine, rather than Man as possessing free will, Soul. I trust Kepler can object to this or prior comments, if he does disagree.

Evidently I'm something of a cross between a Lizard and a Raccoon, so I expect no love from either family.

We have a universe that changes, and science studies the mechanisms of those changes, tests them, and states them precisely, often for use. Science has nothing meta-physical to say or to offer in the way of experience, since whatever is not physical is beyond its ability to study scientifically. "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent," etc.

Some people conclude from the evidence for evolutionary activity that there is no creator at all, but such a conclusion is not scientific (testable).

Nor is it logical. The activity of natural selection is perfectly compatible with the creationist perspective of a First Cause, for example, which is also by necessity continuously Present to all creation. God certainly can be present to the evolving universe at every point.

This is adequately summarized by Charles's first two propositions:

"Belief in God does not preclude belief in evolution.Belief in evolution does not preclude belief in God."

So to me it appears that raging against Charles is misplaced. As far as I can tell his stated position is merely agnostic.* He does seem to take pleasure in swatting those who read Genesis as some sort of scientific account, but I don't see him attacking theism per se. What is very clear is that he attacks any attempt to inject metaphysics into science class. For the continued health of both metaphysics and science (and to prevent Islamist influence), I think that's wise.

Misplaced too is the rage of atheist lizards against raccoons. As any casual survey of scientists and doctors will find, theistic beliefs and scientific methods are often found together. Sometimes both are highly and equally developed. There is simply no justification for ridiculing theists as yahoos; those who engage in this kind of ridicule simply foul themselves.

I am not a scientist or doctor, but I am in their camp because I think the lizard and the raccoon are two halves of the same mind. Their operations and skillsets are different and have different uses. To pit them against each other is to suffer, and to cause suffering.

I simply don't see Charles doing that. Some lizards do, and they will have their own reward.

P.S. If you reject "Darwinism," yes, you are anti-science. The theory of evolution is one of humanity's greatest scientific achievements, and if you deny it, you are denying science.

Now, if you simply choose to deny science, and don't try to force your views on other people, that's your own business. It's sad, but we all have free will.

The problem is that the groups I've been posting about are trying to FORCE their religious views on the rest of society, and they're using dishonest tactics to do it.

You must just believe, you are not allowed to think for yourself or you are anti-science!

Now I work in the civil engineering field which would be applied science, measurements, calculations and such and this has a great effect on how I view evolutionary theory and the incredible assumptions that have to be made for the things we yet cannot observe.

Goodbye Natalie - You cut him to the core with your final parting comment. He has had to repeat it a number of times since, to get the anti-religious masses to rally around him and subject you to the daily 'two minute of hate' exercise. There's almost a cult like quality about that place anymore that is downright creepy. He is certainly not running a conservative blog. It's more like a hate all religions, love Israeli real estate, kinda blog. That is if anyone can pay any attention with all of the ads flickering here, and here, and over here, and over there, and down there...Mike

A more sophisticated creationist will recognize that metaphysics does not describe 'how' it happened but 'why' - and thus not use Genesis as a scientific text. But, certain non-believers, lets say, see only the belief in God, and therefore insist that anyone who believes in God must be as the most hidebound creationist. (Please note, there have been creationists since the dawn of time who did not think of the story of the beginning of the world except as a legend or myth, or as a spiritual understanding, or vague outline.)

You will notice, for example, how a Dennis Prager routinely picks apart the negative hallucinators of the left by never engaging them on the same emotional plane, but by staying within his higher space.

Like when Dennis Prager, a Jew, claimed that Keith Ellison should be banned from Congress for not taking an oath on the Bible, because America is a Christian nation?

no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. U.S. Constitution, 1787

At least in this situation, Dennis Prager's "higher space" was, in fact, the intellectual gutter of Christianist anti-Americanism.

You are a liar, which is to say, a liberal. Dennis Prager never said that Keith Ellison should be "banned," only that he should demonstrate his solidarity with the Judeo-Christian principles upon which the country was founded by swearing on a Bible and a Koran.

What About Bob?

Who's the dude that spirals down the celestial firepole on wings of slack, seizes the wheel of the cosmic bus, and abides in a bewilderness adventure of higher nondoodling? Who, haloed be his gnome, loiters on the threshold of the transdimensional doorway, looking for handouts from Petey? Who, with his doppelgägster and testy snideprick, Cousin Dupree, wields the pliers and blowtorch of fine insultainment for the ridicure of assouls? Who is the gentleman loaffeur who yoinks the sword from the stoned philosopher and shoves it in the breadbasket of metaphysical ignorance and tenure? Whose New Testavus for the Restavus blows the locked doors of the empyrean off their rusty old hinges and sheds a beam of intense darkness on the world enigma? Who is the Biggest Fakir of the Vertical Church of God Knows What, channeling the roaring torrent of 〇 into the feeble stream of cyberspace? Who is the masked pandit who lobs the first water balloon out the motel window at the annual Raccoon convention? Who is your nonlocal partner in disorganized crimethink? Shut your mouth! But I'm talkin' about bʘb! Then we can dig it!

Goround ZerO:

The Cosmic Area Rug:

The empty center is Beyond-Being. The circles are dimensions of Being. Your life is a path for the Spirit to pass from periphery to center. Thoughts and choices -- truth and virtue -- are the paving stones.

Only Error is Transmitted:

Buck Mulligan, Official Mascot

Official Sponsor of the Kosmic Kit Scouts, Laniakea Supercluster Chapter:

"No Kit Left Below"

Fuck You: War

Late last night, in search of light, I watched a ball of fire streak across the midnight sky. I watched it glow, then grow, then shrink, then sink into the silhouette of morning. As I watched it die, I said, ‘Hey, I’ve got a lot in common with that light.’ That’s right. I’m alive with the fire of my life, which streaks across my span of time and is seen by those who lift their eyes in search of light to help them though the long, dark night. --Nilsson

We see that yesterday is our birthday, today is our life, and tomorrow we are gone. So we have just one day to learn all we need to know, and that day is today. --Petey